Reptile

Joe Strike has made a name for himself with his recently published non-fiction book Furry Nation (which has been getting a good deal of attention, of course). But on a side note, Mr. Strike also recently commissioned his first fur-suit — or rather scale-suit, perhaps, as it is an anthro komodo dragon named Komos. Joe then hooked up with fellow writer Oliver Coombes and created Komos & Goldie, an action-adventure crime drama comic series that is decidedly for Mature Audiences Only. “Saurian servant of Circe herself! Sheela-Na-Gig, Celtic sex-goddess, reincarnated! He’s scaly, she’s shiny — together they’re deadly!” And they work to fight organized crime in their own way: Outside of the law, and with more than a bit of magick thrown in. Most of the black & white comic is illustrated by well-known furry and underground comic artist Kjartan Arnorsson. It’s available on-line and also in good-old paper fashion, and both include lots of extra illustrations of the characters by various artists.

Ultimum is another new electronic game system of more than passing furry fandom interest which is seeking development funds through a Kickstarter campaign. Created by Christian Muckler and his associates, Ultimum seeks to recreate the playing environment of a traditional tabletop fantasy role playing game — not only in a paper tabletop setting, but also as a virtual on-line “sandbox”. We should also note, of course, that the game includes several non-human playable races it its science fiction setting — Including humanoid bears, wolves, lizards, and gorillas. The UltimumKickstarter page includes several development videos as well as an animatic “game trailer”.

Serusis is the title of a new 5-issue full-color comic mini-series coming late in June from Big Dog Ink. “Planet Serusis is under the control of the Reliton army and its ruthless leader, Snogard. In an attempt to save their world, two Serusisans kidnap a group of humans in the hopes that they will be able to access the secrets of the creators of Serusis itself. Four humans versus the Reliton army? Good luck with that.” The Serusisans, by the way, resemble large snakes with terrific hairdo’s. The Relitons are big reptiles too, with four limbs and lots of attitude. This all-ages series is written by Tom Hutchison (Critter) and illustrated by Owen Gieni (Avengelyne). Things From Another World has more.

You might have come across the teaser trailer for the upcoming CGI film Rango, which features a giant wind-up fish floating serenely through the air across a desert landscape. Well now there’s a possibly even more weird trailer that at least tells us a little more about the film. For one thing it stars Johnny Depp as the voice of a nerdy chameleon named Rango who aspires to be a swashbuckling hero. When he finds himself stranded in a run-down desert village beset by bandits, he might just have to play the role to save the day. Interestingly, this is the first animated feature film produced by Industrial Light and Magic (of Lucasfilms fame), and it’s directed by none other than Gore Verbinksi, who directed Mr. Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. This very odd (check out the trailer, trust us!) little film from Nickelodeon Movies and Paramount Pictures is set for release in March of 2011.

Lis “Lizardbeth” Boriss has been writing and illustrating the multi-species on-line comic strip Broken Plot Device since 2008. Now she’s looking to produce the first on-paper collection — but she needs help to do that. From her BPD web site:

“It’s been almost a year since BPD started. Many of you have been here since the early beginning, some of you are recent converts. Well, the time has come to collect the past year in a SUPER AWESOME HOLD-IN-YOUR HAND tree corpse form! The title is Nuclear Hoodie, and it’s all of the comics from the past year PLUS a bunch of brand new never-posted-before illustrations and extras. Right now, the plan is to debut the book at Anthrocon. But I can’t do that without YOUR help!!”

Visit her web site at www.brokenplotdevice.com to see the latest comic and find out more about how to pre-order the new book… and help to get it printed!